The Barbeque
by Wiccacow
Summary: Dad Egbert invites Bro and Dave over for John's birthday party. While the kids play, the two guardians discuss what it means to be parents. Among other things.


The sun was an unforgiving bitch, making sure every sweat was broken, that every breath was a prayer moaned for shade or lemonade or other refreshing niceities. It was a heaven-send that the Egbert residence had a pool. Not-so heaven-send that it was full of screaming children, but hey. Take what you can get.

"Thanks for inviting us, Mister Egbert." the young blonde looked over his shades, watching the man flip small steaks on the grill. Classy as hell. He was even in rather formal attire. Wasn't he dying in this heat?

"You are very welcome. You've been very pleasant company." It was evidently difficult to smile around a pipe, but the smile was in his voice. It was one of the charms about him that'd he'd caught onto right away. Tugged a smile on his own face.

"Yeah, well I know the little man appreciates it too, though he'd never say. He has trouble making friends, but I always say it's not the quantity of friends but the quality that matters. And John seems like a fine friend." He paused a moment, wiping his mouth and smiling, hiding a single-noted laugh. "Dave even tried to hide his existence from me. Probably figured I'd embarrass him, but hey, what are guardians for?"

"Mmhm." said the man politely, pressing a meat slab with a spatula.

_Shit, stop trying to distract him. He's gotta make sure the steaks aren't raw so he doesn't poison the kids. He doesn't need to you chatting him and scewin' it up_. "So uh, was there ever a missus Egbert?"

"Once."

"What happened?"

"I don't like to talk about it."

"Ah. Sorry." _Shit Strider, what are you doing._

"It's fine."

God, he felt so awkward. When was the last time he had a conversation with another adult?_ At least by avoiding conversation they never find out about my website._

He leaned back on the fence, smelling the sizzling juices while watching the kids run around like beheaded poultry. It appeared as though Dave and John had thrown water balloons at Rose and gotten her knitting wet. He really ought to step in, but it looked like mom Lalonde was already intervening. "What a couple of pranksters."

"We'll have to teach them the difference between a bad prank and a good practical joke."

It brought a smile to his face for reasons he couldn't discern. "Yeah. Teach 'em good, maybe pull on their ears a little."

"Or leave crude puppets lying about."

"Yeah, or-" _Wait. Shit!_ "Uhhh. Dave told you about that?"

Was that a smile? A visible one, instead of one in his voice? "You can relax, Strider. It isn't how I'd do things, but I don't think it's harmful either. Could be that your boy will be better adjusted to receiving 'the talk' when it comes time." A deep chuckle came from his throat, sliding the steaks onto paper plates. Automatically Strider helped him dish them out. "That's the wonderful and terrible thing about parenting. You never know how they'll turn out, regardless of what you do."

"I wouldn't worry if I were you Mister Egbert. You're raising the boy just fine."

"Thank you, but in the back of my mind I'll always worry."

The gentleman wiped his brow with a slow exhale, shutting the grill. He rested there a moment, before turning his head and looking at Strider directly. His heart pounded as he saw his eyes were the most striking icy blue. Damn.

He was quiet, gathering his words, eyes flickering over Strider's face. He felt like he was being interrogated, felt nervous. He wanted to impress. Then the words came. "My wife left me, but it was a mutual agreement. As we unfortunately discovered, I didn't hold interest in women."

Strider was stunned. Did he mean- what he thought he meant? Before he could ask the man had twisted his body, raising a hand to throw his voice. "Dinner is served!"

The children shrieked, glad to have the promise of food after burning most of their energy chasing each other. The man laughed and ruffled John's hair as he came by to snatch food before running off to find a nice place to sit in the grass, chattering away with Jade and Dave about some new game that was coming out, with Rose only injecting the occasional remark. As a guardian, Strider knew he should've been watching the kids with a similar warm gaze. But he just couldn't take his eyes off the charming Mister Egbert.


End file.
